Cheltenham North Rugby Club are getting ready to go up in the world.

That’s because they expect to start work next year on converting their single-story clubhouse at Stoke Orchard into a two-storey building.

If planning permission is granted – and club chairman Paul Balmer does not anticipate any problems – work would start in March 2018 and would be completed in readiness for the start of the 2019/20 season.

The club currently have three changing rooms and the new build would see that number double. The new changing rooms would remain on the ground floor with the upstairs area set aside for the club’s social activities.

As you would imagine, the new building will not come cheap and is expected to cost £1.5 million. Much of the money will be provided by organisations such as Sport England in the form of grants but the North will still have to find around £375,000 themselves.

The Gloucestershire Premier club have set up a fundraising committee chaired by Paul Carter, who runs a marketing company in Tewkesbury.

However, they could have their work cut out because when asked how much money the club had raised so far, Balmer chuckled: “About four pence,” before adding “we haven’t officially started the process yet!”

It’s the club’s thriving junior section that has convinced the club’s top brass that the current clubhouse, which was built in 1991 and opened in 1992, is no longer fit for purpose.

“We’re getting around 200 kids coming along to training every Sunday morning,” said Balmer, who has been chairman for the past 10 years. “We just haven’t got enough changing room space for them so we thought it was about time we future proofed the club.”

The building work will take place throughout the 2018/19 season but the current changing room facilities will still be available to the players during this time.

“We’ll put a steel frame around the current clubhouse and just build around it,” said Balmer, who is on the fundraising committee and has big plans for the clubhouse when the work is completed.

“We’ve approached one of the cycling clubs who said they would like to use us as their permanent HQ and we’ve also approached one of the running clubs who haven’t got a base to hold their social events.

“We’re also building relationships with the local cadet forces who want more space for their activities.”

It is all part of the club’s plan to throw its doors open to the community, although rugby will always be their major going concern.

“We are an amateur community sports club and we’re open to other sports,” said Balmer.

It’s all a far cry from when Balmer, now 64, first started playing rugby for the club almost 40 years ago.

“I started playing in 1978,” the one-time no. 8 said. “I retired from regular rugby when I was 45 and became 2nd XV manager but I still played quite a lot because I’d often have to make up the numbers.

“I kept on playing until three years ago when I broke my pelvis against Worcester Vets. I was stuck on the sofa for three months and I was a bit slow getting around for quite a long time!

“But rugby is a passion for me and I just loved playing.”

That passion for rugby, however, is not shared by everyone in the Balmer household.

“My wife Helen has no interest in rugby and steadfastly refuses to come to any games,” he laughed. “Mind you, she’s probably very wise because otherwise she’d get lumbered with all these jobs – just like me!”